Bourgeois and Maurice are a couple of sequin-clad weirdos who may in fact just be one of best pair of performance artists we have seen in a very long time. For the past nine years this delightfully bizarre duo have been wowing crowds in London and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Their caustic humor, and their gloriously satirical songs have also made them social media darlings.
I first came across the pair when looking into the explosion of guerrilla cabaret and alternative drag acts that have originated in the East End, and instantly got hooked on their wickedly funny videos. I became a big fan of the couple who the Evening Standard succinctly dubbed ‘musical comedy’s answer to the Manson family’, and who singer Beth Ditto declared she loved because they are ‘absolute filth’. They seem to be quintessential nouveau Brits but they do in fact hail somewhere from Outer Space and we not only had trouble tracking them down but our satellite connection rendered most of our video chat too ‘edgy’ to use. Here instead by way of introduction are Georgeois Bourgeois and Maurice Maurice themselves when they first thought about starting up a Band.
QG: We are doing this interview in part for PTV a tiny station at the end of the world. I’m hoping though that the whole concept of television doesn’t bring back bad memories for you because of the fact you were orphaned as kids when your parents died during a freak storm in 1987, whilst trying to install satellite TV.
B: It’s a weird one. We kind of feel that TV is like our mom and dad, and so I love it.
M: So do I
B: ….. when you can love!
M: He’s right. I don’t have the ability to love anything really.
QG: Are you related to each other in any wholesome way?
M: We are related, but I don’t know how wholesome it is.
B: I think everyone’s definition of wholesome is different. For example Whole Foods to me is quite a disturbing place, and I wouldn’t consider that wholesome, but some people do.
M: Many people do.
QG: What is your description of wholesome then?
B: Anything that makes me feel fabulous
M: Yeah I like alcohol, it makes me free great and that’s very wholesome.
B: I like mirrors. They are very wholesome
M: Make up is very wholesome too, especially conturing.
B: Contouring is like the wheat grass shot of our life.
QG: So why this urge to perform? Did you start as kids?
M: I don’t have an urge to perform. I detest it.
B: It’s a battle every time we go on stage to make Maurice do it
M: He has to sedate me and push me on.
B: Sometimes she has no idea she’s even on stage. But my urge to perform is very strong and I think it’s strong enough for the two of us.
M: …….it was fetal for you
B: Absolutely, I remember when I came out of the womb and it seemed like two red velvet curtains parting, and I thought I am so ready for this debut.
M: Which is interesting because you didn’t come out of a vagina did you?
B: No, I was hatched from a brain cell
QG: Did you both have potty mouths as kids?
M: Well we had potties in our mouths as kids, and I was into scat at a young age.
B: Yes you were very heavily into it, and nappy based humor
M: ……. always was and always will be a big part of my life
B: ….. don’t judge!
QG: Is that when you became addicted to Ritalin?
B: Yes we were not prescribed it, we just sought it out.
G: You just need to go to silkroad.com
M: And they have got all the Ritalin that any child or adult could really hope for.
QG: Are you guys still into it now?
B: Are we on Ritalin now? Of course! I’m on it all the time. I have it for breakfast, for lunch and for dinner, and that is how I stay so thin. And Maurice is on a Belushi cocktail
M: …… of various prescription and non-prescription medications
QG: When you started as a band over 9 years ago one of your first gigs was headlining at Glastonbury, how come?
M: No it wasn’t (laughing ). We played in a tiny tent at 4 a.m. to what I can only describe as a lot of happy gentlemen, but we never headlined it (laugh).
QG: You can blame Julian Assange for that as you can never always believe what you read on Wikipedia
B: True, but I have got an interesting Glastonbury story. Once when we played there, someone stood right next to the stage watching us and masturbating in full public glare. That’s a nice story you may want to share, or may not, with your television audience and readers.
QG: I won’t ask at who he was looking at in particular
M: We never figured it out, and it has been a bone of contention between us for years
QG: Are you competitive in that way?
B: We share every body we get, don’t we? I catch them ……
M: …… and I eat them up!
QG: You represented Russia the second time you won the Alternative Eurovision Contest what was that all about ?
M: Basically it was a show with a very un-diverse crowd of British people representing a diverse world population. It was very colonial in a way as we were taking voices from other people and just pretending to be them.
B: We decided to represent Russia because we are very big fans of Vladimir Putin.
M: He’s one of the greatest fashion designers the world has ever known. We did this song about the end of Europe really. I don’t know if you have heard about Europe? It’s something that happened a few years ago, and now it’s over.
QG: I’m shocked that you have heard of Europe from wherever you are from.
QG: So why do you hate social networking sometimes?
M: This is an interesting one as we both love it and also hate it. There’s a word for when you have two contradictory thoughts at the same time, but I can’t think about it now because I’m high. We hate social media because sometimes some people are having much more fun than us, and doing BETTER than us, and we hate that because we are very competitive, and we are not particularly generous.
B: We lost about 4 years of our lives in the early 2000’s because we didn’t leave our house at all. We spent the whole time literally in front of the mirror looking at ourselves. We had fun, but people told us it wasn’t very healthy so when social media came about we just joined it because we considered it was exactly the same thing, but just more current.
QG: If you’re not mad about social media, then what is the favorite part of your lives?
M: ….. ourselves really
G: ( laughing)
M: …… but that actually is to do with feelings, and I don’t go in for any of them
B: I like the unabashed adoration of an audience which is fun. But Maurice what is the favorite thing of your life?
M: …. nothing really
B: …. that’s sad but true
QG: What are sugar tits?
M: It’s an affectionate term for a human. Its what you call someone when you cannot be bothered or even care about their actual name.
B: I think Mel Gibson coined it.
M: Did he?
B: He used it on us when we went to dinner with him. He called me Sugartits
M: But he called me Maurice!
B: He’s weird that way.
QG: Did he mind you using it as the name of your next show ?
B: He is very very sweet …
M: …. and he has always being supportive of our work
B: He called us up and said said ‘guys I love the fact you’re calling your show sugar tits’!
M: He just wanted to get the sugar tits message out there
B: Mel Gibson is all about Branding. He’s about positive powerful messages, so if there is anything we can do to help him ……
QG: Would you call yourself queer performers?
B: I think we would
QG: I hope you didn’t tell Mel Gibson you were.
M: He wouldn’t care, as he’s one of the leading queer performers on the London performance circuit
B: ….. not a lot of people know that about him. When he was filming Braveheart up in Scotland, every weekend he went to CC Blooms one of the most famous gay clubs in Edinburgh and he would do this amazing lip syncing routine .
M: ….he really won the crowd over.
QG: Have you ever performed in the US, and if not what do you think they would make of you?
M: We have actually
B: We were in New York 4 years ago, and I think they enjoyed as we are going back this April.
M: I think some Americans may have thought they were watching Downton Abbey, which I guess they were in a way really. Because we too are really into class and keeping poor people subjugated against their will and not giving them too many aspirations outside of their social situation.
QG: You know you seem awfully familiar to me is there a possibility we could have met in another time and age ?
B: Possibly, because looking at you I said it could have been a party in Beijing
QG: You don’t seem to be big on global warming why is that?
M: People are such downers sometimes
B: It’s like there are so many ways of looking at anything and I just think ok, maybe we going to get suffocated in a giant noxious gas cloud
M: Maybe there is not going to be space for anyone and we’re not going to be able to produce food anymore
B: ….. so brighten up and live with it
M: ….. change your perspective
B: …. get a lovely outlook on life and you hope you have a great time
M: …. if your gonna die, then you might as well have a laugh.
B: Well after we go to New York in April we then go to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August which is like The Hunger Games for artists.
M: …. and if we survive
B: …. we have written a musical that we are not actually in and that will be performed in the UK about Christmas time. That is the imminent future, but also their is the matter of the baby we had about seven years ago …..
M: Where do you put it it?
B: I don’t know. We haven’t checked on it in a long time so we may try reconnect with it.
M: Plus of course we will probably carry on looking at ourselves and talking about ourselves
B: There is a lot of people out there trying to save the world, but we like the world as it is. It is pretty much perfect as I’m sure you will agree. In fact we are trying to mount a crusade right now to stop anyone trying to save the world
M: Leave it as it, its nice
B: It’s like when they redid the McDonalds logo and made it green instead of red.
M: Is that what they did?
B: It was to make them look healthy …. it didn’t work.
QG: The most important thing is will you ever learn to dance?
M: Actually he can.
B: I can dance avant garde very well
M: ….. it’s almost his own genre
B: Maybe in about 50 or 60 or 300 years, people will talk about me as a sort of …..
M: ….. choreographer
B: …… I feel as I am one of the most groundbreaking choreographers of the 21st century. But until that time I’m sure I’ll be ridiculed for my moves.
QG: I am very well connected in Hollywood and if I was financed to produce a movie about your life with no budget restrictions at all who would play you in the movie?
M + B in unison : Benedict Cumberbatch and Anne Hathaway
QG: oh my god I can actually see that
B: They are in talks with us already.
M: We’ve been playing them for the last few years, so now we thought we should switch it up and they play us
You can see Bourgeois & Maurice live in Philadelphia and New York in April, and in Brighton, UK in May . Full details http://www.bourgeoisandmaurice.co.uk/dates/.
And you can watch all their glorious videos any time at http://www.bourgeoisandmaurice.co.uk/video/
Labels: 2016, culture, Interviews
